Major Greenland Mineral Extraction Project

Aerial photography company BlueSky (UK) has created a series of contour maps, terrain models and perspective views from archived black and white aerial photography to aid site and infrastructure development for an export quarry and crushing works in Fiskefjord, a remote site in West Greenland. The project to extract Olivine* a mineral used mainly in the steel industry is a venture led by Crew Gold Corporation; commercial extraction is scheduled to commence in 2006.
It difficult and expensive to mobilise land surveyors in a region as Greenland. In normal circumstances it would be possible to task a satellite and use the resulting stereo imagery for much of the survey work but with no guaranteed weather windows it would be hard to justify the expense until May or June 2005 delaying the project unnecessarily.
The solution was archived aerial photography created approximately 40 years ago by KMS the Danish Mapping Agency. The black and white stereo photos flown at 1:150,000 scale were scanned and processed by BlueSky to a 2 metre vertical accuracy producing contour maps, terrain models complete with perspective views of the proposed development area. The next stage will be to produce more detailed maps using GPS ground control points collected on site.